How to amuse yourself at a transportation meeting

I never thought a transportation meeting could be comedy gold, but ‘twas folks, oh ‘twas.

If you followed my tweets today, I took a little jaunt up to Austin early this morning for a meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees the Texas Department of Transportation. I went to watch the commission allocate most of $2 billion to the various transportation districts across the state.

First things first – after my drive on Interstate 35 in Austin this morning, I’ve decided our state capital should get all the money. EVERY LAST DIME. Because that road sucks.

Ok. Taking a breath and a step back.

Onto the actual business.

The directors of the state’s four large Metropolitan Planning Organizations – which plan any transportation project involving one penny of federal money – got together to decide some ground rules for the $2 billion.

One of the parameters was that each project should “tell a story.”

I can’t think of any great yarns that started with, “There was once this large highway expansion project,” but whatever. Story. Got it.

San Antonio’s MPO Director Sid Martinez stood up to make his remarks. Referencing the aforementioned rule, he said San Antonio’s story would be like a “melodramatic novel,” and then specifically mentioned U.S. 281 because, he later told me, it’s because that expansion project has taken so long to get going, its environmental study had to be re-done, etc.

That’s one way to make a transportation commission meeting more interesting.

But it didn’t end there. San Antonio brought a huge delegation of officials to speak in support of the city’s transportation projects. Just as Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson was about to speak — and he has been a very loud opponent to tolls on U.S. 281 — one of the transportation commissioners asked the following question.

“Sid, that novel you were talking about? Any of the actors or the characters in that novel in that delegation?”

Zing! Or should I say, ouch? They were quite a jokey bunch. Is it OK when a commissioner who can decide which cities do or don’t get money starts teasing one of those city’s officials? Especially when no other city sent representatives to speak, with the exception of one county commissioner from Cameron County?

We’ll see. San Antonio got $146.8 million on Thursday, which was expected. The question now is, will the city get more? TxDOT has $413 million in discretionary funds it’s yet to hand out.

But in that moment, Adkisson replied in quite the San Antonio fashion.

“We have a lot of fun in Bexar County,” he said, “ever since the battle of the Alamo.”